The 4th Subject

Chapter 36: Dried Out Glue

"Someone was here."

Those three words physically hurt. He knew. The Phantom——or most likely, Wesley——knew we were there.

"They shouldn't have been able to find a location like this." The voice was so distorted, and yet so clear.

"He's on a phone call," Matt muttered.

"You don't understand sir, she's trained them well. They're resourceful and annoyingly resilient."

Ok, that's a little funny.

"No, none of the prototype is missing. It doesn't seem like anything is missing."——a moment of silence——"They rifled through my documents."

"So this isn't the prototype?" Matt whispered, tapping the case.

"It's nothing important. I'm sure they've already put together who I am."

Maybe.

"I'll be sure to put a stop to this."

That can't be good.

The voice died down. All I could hear was shuffling of footsteps and papers.

"Matt that was so stupid!" Sam yelled, hitting him in the arm.

"Whoa!" He responded, lifting his hand in shock.

"Why didn't you guys wanna leave?" Her voice was harsh and raspy.

"Relax," He responded. "I get it, I get it, I messed up."

"He knows we were there, we don't know who he was talking to, or what information they have now that they know where we there!"

"I get it, I get it ok?" Matt repeated, glancing at us through the mirror. "I should've listened to you. Look, we're safe now."

"For now," Sam snapped.

"But that's why I wanna end it!" Matt countered. "That's why I want this all to be over, and not just keep chasing the serum!"

A singular tense moment fell over the car.

"Look, I'm sorry," Matt continued, "I should've listened to you."

"We were in danger," Sam's voice broke.

"I know," Matt said lowly, "I understand."

Another moment passed before Woods spoke up.

"What was the prototype he was talking about?"

"I don't know," I replied, "he just said something along the lines of "they didn't get the prototype"."

"He must be prototyping the serum," Matt said. "This is what he was modeling it after."

Even though the topic changed, I felt the very air I was breathing was still tainted with stress and tension.

"Can we just, I don't know, just take a breather?" I piped up. "Just take a break from filming until we get back?"

"That's a good idea," Matt muttered, glancing at me.

I could tell exactly what was going on in his brain. But I'm sick of arguing with him. We'll save that for tomorrow.

~*~

The five of us——Matt, Sam, Woods, Quinn and I——were standing around the tablet table in Headquarters, looking through the handful of documents from the RV.

"Wesley Nathaniel, 2/15/2000."

This document was for a safe deposit box. A safe deposit box from almost 20 years ago. Matt began laying out the papers in chronological order, starting with a letter from him to Deb.